Moonshine Pie
by UnstableIntention
Summary: Baker Peter who can only express how he feels with the pies he turns out day after day in his little shop down on Main Street. He bakes and he experiments, and he feeds the people he cares about. He's a little quiet, a little shy… broken maybe. He doesn't like the loudmouthed kid who starts coming in every week and stuffs his face while moaning like a porn star. At least at first.
1. Open for Business

People sometimes accused Peter Hale of being a cold sort of man behind his back.

They didn't understand him, but that was all right - he didn't mind. It kept them all at a safe distance, kept them from pushing in too close. Besides, a cold man meant cold hands, and cold hands were best for making pie. Cold hands kept the fat from melting as dough was turned and kneaded, and that made for a more tender, flaky crust.

And anyway, he couldn't bear the heat.

A strange thing for a man who lived and breathed at the doors of ovens, but there it was. Baking heat was a heat he could control, a heat he stared into day after day with a kind of self-mocking spite. Every time he opened the cavernous maw of one of his stainless steel, industrial sized ovens he was facing down a fire breathing dragon, his very own personal hell-demon, and it was never any easier than it had been the day before.

In the beginning, it had been all about proving a point. To himself, to his sister, who hadn't been sure and would've rather he just move back in with the pack and sit quietly, take up stitching or some other ridiculous hobby to keep his hands busy and his mind occupied.

But Peter still had his pride, and when he'd passed the closed-up little storefront on his way to one of his weekly therapy sessions his interest, cold and still as it was, had stuttered to life. The purchase came as more of a whim than anything else - at the time he'd had no business plan, no idea what he was going to do with the space, but he'd taken the restitution money awarded him by the state of New York and made the purchase anyway.

It had been a casual sushi bar before it had been disclosed on. A marble countertop ran the length of the shop; a bar for customers to eat from set one level lower than the prep station on the other side, separated by a long panel of glass. The kitchen opened out behind it, lined with old flat-top grills, a walk-in cooler with attached freezer, and what felt like miles of unnecessary steel shelving. It would have made sense to turn it into another sushi place, but his extra sensitive nose made the scent of raw fish an unpleasant one, and really, Peter didn't know anything about sushi.

Not that he knew anything about pie either.

He wasn't even sure where the idea had come from.

A whole summer spent clearing out the dust, painting the walls in pale blue and white, putting in a sealed, blonde, hardwood floor and not knowing, and then all of a sudden it was pie and he was ordering ovens to be installed in place of the grills and using his business degree to figure out code and inspection requirements, and how to enter into wholesale agreements with local farmer's markets and produce suppliers. It took ages, almost two years to get everything straightened out. Hardly a sound business investment at that point - he wasn't making any money and spending it left and right - but luckily he didn't need it.

Luckily…

More importantly though, for the first time in a long time, Peter had been content.

He'd moved in to the tiny apartment above the shop and spent his days refurbishing the place, keeping it warm and cozy with mismatched tables and braided rugs, lamps with patterned shades and too many throw-pillows, while the store downstairs got a more modern treatment, bright and clean and cool. At night he read up on pie - watching episodes of Good Eats and Martha Bakes, studying tricks and techniques, experimenting with recipes and jotting down the ones he liked in a battered notebook.

In the beginning he was terrible. None of his attempts went well, pie after pie ending up in the bin, but eventually at some point, something clicked. He didn't know what it was - maybe the day of the week he'd baked it, or the order in which he'd taken the ingredients down from the cabinets - but something.

Something finally went right.

It was an apple pie that did it, the classic American staple, and that felt right. It was sweet but not overly so, the apples a little bit tart, soft but not mushy. Sticky, spiced, with a light, buttery crust. One bite and he'd had to put his fork down, push back from the table and just stare. It had taken so long to get to that point, he'd started to think that he never would.

He'd been afraid it was a fluke. For the next thirteen hours he worked at another seven pies, one at a time, all the same classic apple, and while there were small variations in each of them they were all delicious, all minutely flawed, all perfect. The next day he boxed them all up, stacked them carefully into the back seat of his car and drove the twenty minutes out of the suburbs to his sister's house. Not all the family lived there but it was the hub for pack activity, everyone constantly coming and going, sharing space and taking comfort in each other's presence. Once upon a time Peter had done that too, had hung around and teased and cracked jokes and played pranks on his young nieces and nephews just like everyone else.

But things changed, and it had been a long time since he'd dropped by for anything as innocuous as a casual visit.

All three of Talia's children were in the kitchen when he arrived; Laura, Derek, and Cora all situated at the counter finishing up their homework as per house rules. Before he'd been quite close with each of them, but the attack, his brief stint in a coma, and all the mess that came after were still like a fresh wound between them at the time, and they could only model what they saw their elders do by treating him like glass. Though the youngest, Cora was perhaps also the brightest, the most cunning in an unpolished sort of way, and Peter was sure she'd seen the quiet pride in him that afternoon as he cut each of them a slice and awaited their verdict with poorly hidden nervousness.

Derek hadn't understand at all - he'd wolfed his down, mumbled a thank you, and - temperamental teenager that he was - run off to brood in his bedroom behind a locked door with punk music blaring.

Laura was a little better. She'd made a point to tell him how good the pie was, asked for a second piece which he'd served her, but despite being all of nineteen and next in line for Alpha, or perhaps precisely because of that, she just hadn't been sure what else to do. He could smell the uncertainty on her like burning sugar, and while it had made him shift uncomfortably on his feet, it also made him wonder idly if he could somehow work a caramel into the recipe.

But Cora, thirteen year old Cora, who still braided her hair in pigtails and wore denim overalls so that she could play baseball with the boys, had known exactly what to do.

She didn't talk, didn't coddle or reassure him with platitudes, just broke the strange unwritten rule that had somehow arisen from Peter's flinching discomfort with physical contact and wrapped her scrawny arms around his waist, buried her face in his sweater and held on.

And Peter had hugged her back.

It hadn't been one of those angsty movie hugs that went on and on forever - she let go eventually. But she'd told him she loved him right before she'd run out to the backyard to play, and it had been honest and easy and had felt like something that hadn't happened in a very long time either. Peter's throat had been tight as he'd left, driving back to his apartment above the little shop, and he hadn't been up to doing anything more that afternoon than brewing a cup of tea and wrapping himself in a patchwork quilt, curled up on his couch where he spent hours staring into space, partially in a doze and partway trapped in the painful, vibrant memories his psychologist called flashbacks.

They'd never caught the person who did it. Peter sometimes wondered if that wasn't half the reason he had as many problems as he did. He'd barely been a teenager when werewolves had first come out to the world, but two decade's time hadn't been enough to overcome human fear and hatred of what they couldn't understand, what was different from who they were themselves. A string of local arson and a well-timed Molotov cocktail aimed at the lobby of Peter's small business upstart had been more than enough to serve as a reminder.

He shouldn't have survived it, not even with his werewolf healing capabilities. The chemicals had been laced through with wolfsbane and the surgeons had called it a miracle that he hadn't succumbed to the toxins as fire melted the skin from his bones. As it was, he supposed he had been lucky to have slipped into a comatose state for those first three months, while his body continually shed the damaged cells and attempted to regrow healthy ones, only to have to start the process all over again until the poisons had fully worked themselves out of his system. That of course had taken much longer, but if the pain he'd experienced that first year of recovery after finally opening his eyes again had been any indicator, being absent from his mind at the beginning of it was a gift of mercy.

But beginnings were always difficult.

That wasn't to say that things got any easier, but Peter had certainly built up a high tolerance for pain as the weeks passed. The physical agony eventually receded; after sixteen months in hospitals and intensive care he'd mostly healed and had been remanded to his Alpha's custody with only strict instructions on how to do anything and everything at all and a date book stuffed full of physical therapy appointments to keep him in line. Of course that was only half the battle - Peter had been an angry, fearful, broken-down mess for some time after that. He'd quickly come to feel himself a burden in his sister's home, and the looks and treatment he'd received from the members of his pack had cut like a knife.

Peter had never accepted pity and he hadn't been about to start.

So he'd moved out, gone back to his cold, sterile apartment made vogue by words like _modern_ and _chic_ , when really all it was was clinical and empty. It had felt so much like the hospital with its white walls and stainless steel that it had given him the chills, set nightmares to playing on repeat against the back of his skull every night. The psychological pain might have been the worst of it for him to suffer. Peter had always been confident, cocky, always smirking and taking risks for silly thrills or inconsequential prizes, but the very core of him had been changed by his experience. He became withdrawn, overly cautious, untrusting and unsure of other people. Even his own family were subjected to his change in mood, could only stand silently and awkwardly when he shifted out of reach of a casual touch, when he backed away from a scent marking or ducked out from beneath a soothing hand. He didn't have to see their faces to know that his downcast gaze unnerved them, or that his now quiet, skittish demeanor felt like failure on their behalf.

But Peter knew the truth of it, even if they didn't.

It was up to him to fix himself, if that was what he wanted.

Some days he did, and so he worked at it - went to his physical therapy and his appointments with the shrink, forced himself to go into town and interact with other living beings, since according to his sister the cat he'd rescued from the rain one frigid morning didn't count.

Other days were harder, and he cared less about what he did or what he became, and so he stayed indoors and made tea and let the memories come.

With half the people he knew watching on concernedly and the rest getting after him to find himself a hobby, he'd put more of his hope into the future of the little pie shop than he was willing to admit to anyone, let alone himself. And while Peter was a fairly patient man, it was hard not to hang an _Open_ sign in the window the very next morning after that first perfect pie. Hope was a frightening thing, hot and solid and electric, but the idea of failure at this was even more so, and so somehow he had managed to wait, to hold himself back day after day as he kept at it, learning to turn a one-off into something steady and reliable. Oddly enough after that first one, he found that he actually had a talent for it if he paid attention, if he immersed himself in the process and didn't overthink things. He even came to enjoy baking, found some solace in it, some peace. It was quiet, calming, and Peter was content.

Two years, four months, and seventeen days after purchase, Moonshine Pie was open for business.


	2. Taco Pie

The terrible truth about having a shop so close to a college campus was that Peter quickly became far more trend-savvy than he'd ever intended to be.

He hadn't always avoided social media. He'd had a MySpace page as a young adult when the site had first exploded onto the scene, and later a LinkedIn profile as he worked toward his business degree, but he shied from most things IT now. Ever since he'd gotten out of the hospital he found himself supremely uncomfortable with the idea of putting his face, his location, his _life_ out into the ether for anyone to peruse.

Subsequently he was careful with his use of the internet. The Facebook page and the Twitter account that Moonshine Pie now boasted had been created by Cora - Peter had no more to do with it than answering the text she sent him each morning.

It was touching in a way; that she still updated the thing religiously, posting the day's flavors for his rapidly growing client base. Still sixteen and in her sophomore year of high school, Peter was sure that she had other things she would rather be doing, and yet every morning like clockwork she still asked. She was probably half the reason his shop was so popular, spreading the word across the internet in ways that he couldn't with flyers or cheap ad spots. He simply couldn't handle that much exposure, that much risk, so he left the Tweeting and the status updates to her, and still the silly things managed to catch in the back of his mind like a bad pop song, whispering things in his ears when he'd much rather they shut up and leave off.

Hash tags, Instagram, SnapChat…

And Taco Tuesday.

That was probably the worst so far, because it was such a ridiculous concept and because it made horrible, awful sense, and so here he was with the mini pie pans that he absolutely hated because they were such a pain to fill, trying to figure out how to incorporate corn tortilla chips into a pie crust.

His business plan had evolved a bit in the seven months since Moonshine Pie had opened. It had taken him a while, a few stumbles, but he thought he might have finally found a workable formula. The shop was open Monday through Saturday, and to each of those days he'd assigned two of his twelve most popular pie flavors, a sweet and savory each. These pies were served by the slice all day, while the Flavor of the Day was often something newer, a little less well-known, pies that Peter turned out in limited batches - once at open and again at five in the evening. It was that pie that Cora tweeted every morning, that got its name announced on an old A-frame chalkboard on the sidewalk, and in the seven short months that Peter's shop had been open, it had become popular enough that there were often lines of hopefuls out the door and halfway up the block waiting for a piece of the action.

The notoriety didn't mean all that much to him. Yes, it was nice that the place was doing so well, that he had a steady income once again, but it was the actual baking that Peter loved, the process that soothed his often tangled nerves. Experimenting with new flavors was one of his favorite things, but no matter how many incredible accomplishments he'd managed in the last few years, inside or outside of the kitchen, his confidence in himself was still shot.

Hence - mini pie pans.

God, he hated those things.

Spooning his chip mixture into the wells, Peter scowled at the dented metal, rarely called into service but horribly battered from ill-use.

Perhaps if he baked the crust first, and then filled it…

It was worth a try.

Around him, his five employees bustled back and forth - one on the register and two each for waiting on tables and working the serving line. There was another one that worked in the back, a young man named Tommy that he'd come to like just a little bit more than he tended to like other people, who helped him with the larger-scale production of the shop's stable, cycling flavors. This allowed Peter more time to focus on the day's specials, and to work on whatever new idea currently had him in a tailspin.

Noting that Tommy was currently occupied with carrying trays from the ovens to the cooling racks, Peter wondered idly if perhaps he shouldn't hire a lackey or a bus-boy, someone to do all the nitpicky things that he didn't want to do.

Like fill the stupid mini pans.

Still, as much as he abhorred the task it didn't deter him from hosting what he thought of as Critique Days. Experiments, new recipes, whenever he thought he'd gotten a new one down he would pull out the retched things, make dozens on dozens of bite-sized samples that went out free to any customer who agreed to scribble a comment on the star-shaped sticky notes Laura had bought him in a bid to boost his confidence with positive customer feedback.

He'd twisted their purpose a bit, he supposed, but that was all right. The complaints meant more than the praise - he learned from them, adapted, and while leaving his customers full and satisfied was nice, it was his family's opinion that he craved, his pack's bellies that he cared about. He still couldn't talk to them like he had before, still couldn't open up, so he fed them instead and the majority of them seemed to understand - Cora the most naturally, and Laura after her, and then the rest of them.

When he asked if they were hungry, it was the same as saying 'I care. You're important, and I care.'

Even when he couldn't say it, when he backed away and couldn't look them in the eye.

 _Are you hungry_? _Did you eat_?

Shoving the tray of tortilla crusts into one of the empty ovens, Peter stepped away from the sharp gust of heat and tugged at the front of his shirt, the plain black v-neck he wore that showed flour-dusted handprints like the touch of a ghost. The rest of Moonshine's crew wore deep navy t-shirts with silver script, the simple full-moon logo he'd branded the place with, but Peter couldn't stand the touch of fabric around his neck. It irritated his skin, the scarring that crept high enough to be seen curving around the base of his throat. The damage was far worse underneath, spreading across his chest and over his shoulder, down the side of his rib cage toward his hip, but all in all it was minimal compared to what it was, what it could have been.

The specialists had called him lucky, had smiled when his face healed over and all that showed anymore was the bit on his neck, the dark, scaled skin the swirled down over his bicep and edged out from beneath his sleeve when they were short enough.

Peter didn't really care how he looked, not after he'd lived when he should've died. The scars had little effect on him anymore - working with his physical therapist had helped him regain almost his full range of movement and he avoided mirrors. Not because of vanity, that wasn't it, but because the scars were a trigger. At least that was what his psychologist told him. He tended to let himself fall into the flashbacks whenever he really thought about them so he tried not to, avoiding his reflection unless he was fully dressed and distracting himself with other things.

Like how to turn a taco into a pie.

Grabbing the silicone clamps from a nearby counter, Peter pulled the hot tray from the oven, hoping that this batch would be the last. It was already late in the afternoon, and he'd set himself up for failure by shooting a message off to Cora earlier that morning, asking her to spread the word that the next day would be a Critique for Taco Pie. He wasn't ready, hadn't gotten it quite right yet, but Tuesday would still bring a rush of college students looking for a free handout.

Popping one of the crusts from the well, he was pleased to see that it held its shape, crunched when he broke it in half. It tasted good too, not too salty, and another five minutes' worked proved it capable of standing up to the filling of ground beef, corn, chilis, and shredded cheese he'd stuffed them with. Topped with crisp lettuce and tomatoes, a dollop of sour cream and a spritz of hot sauce and he was ready to reassess his preparedness.

Taco Pie.

"It's a good job boss," Tommy offered in the calm, unruffled tone that Peter had come to appreciate, having stuck two of them in his mouth and flashed a thumbs up. "Want me to start the prep?"

"Please," Peter nodded, taking off his apron and rinsing his hands under the sink. "Let's start with the crust - the more we do tonight the less we'll have to do tomorrow."

 **XXX**

In the end, there was no real way to prepare for a Critique day.

Peter did his best, and the team he'd put together was pretty amazing, but he never felt ready.

Even when there were enough ingredients, even when production went smoothly and the pies came out of the ovens or the coolers practically perfect, he still ended up needing to slip out into the alley behind the shop for a break about halfway through the day.

Today was no different.

Leaning back against the cool brick, Peter closed his eyes and started his breathing exercises, focused on counting. When he'd first started seeing his therapist he'd been recommended to try multiplication tables but that hadn't worked - he only ended up frustrated when he couldn't think of the next number. Now he imagined himself kneading, turning pie dough a quarter at a time, _one_ , _two_ , _three_ …

It was repetitive, familiar, and it helped to a point, but today was one of Peter's bad days. He'd woken up in a cold sweat, unable to remember the nightmares but haunted all afternoon by a feeling of paranoia, hyper alert to the sounds and smells around him, watching every movement with suspicion. His shoulder throbbed with a bone-deep ache that his physical therapists still hadn't determined as real or psychosomatic, and his scars felt stretched and tight, like his skin had shrunk in his sleep. He wanted calm and quiet, to shut himself up in his apartment with his cat and his quilt and his new cookbook, but it was two o'clock in the afternoon and prime time for Moonshine Pie.

The rush had started around lunchtime, only an hour after opening at eleven, and they'd already handed out approximately one hundred little taco pies along with two thick stacks of sticky notes. Not everyone accepted the proffered samples, some just took their slices of apple or chicken pot pie and left, but most, primarily the college crowd who never turned their noses up to free food, accepted the yellow paper stars, grabbed a pen from the mason jars set out on the handful of tables that fit in the store, and left with a smile.

Peter had managed to push through the worst of it, but now as the crowd began to thin, when he was sure that his first shifters - Celia, Lottie, Jamieson, Tina, and Booker - had things well in hand, he'd practically run for the back door, nodding to Tommy who understood without explanation, and ducked out into the warm, thick smog of the alley. It wasn't exactly comfortable, the air was redolent with the smell of rotting trash, the narrow brick aisle between street fronts clustered with big metal dumpsters and back doors, but it was often remarkably quiet and empty, and really that was all Peter asked if it.

Just until he could get his heart rate down, his breathing straightened out, his hands steady again too if he was lucky.

He'd been prescribed medical marijuana for the pain and the anxiety, one of the few drugs that affected werewolves, but he didn't like to use it unless he absolutely had to, and he never smoked if he was going back on shift. He hated the way the smell clung to his clothes, expected his employees to be clean and presentable and held himself to the same standard. It tended to send his appetite into hyper-drive too and there was no way he was taking that chance in a pie shop.

Letting out one last shaky breath, he stood up from his slouch and headed back inside, relieved by the blast of air conditioning and the more pleasant smells of baking, but unnerved once more by the bustle and cacophony of a busy store. Scrubbing his hands in the sink at the back of the hall, he plucked his apron from a coat hook and folded the top over, crossed the laces and tied it low around his waist. Checking in with Jamieson at the register, he tried to ignore the large glass jar on the counter that was slowly filling up with slips of paper, casting a quick glance around the room instead as he ducked down the prep line. Tina and Lottie moved quickly from table to table, serving drinks and wiping things down while Celia and Booker boxed slices of pie behind the bar. Tommy was in the back, steady and dedicated as ever as he carried trays of pies from oven to rack, from rack to counter.

Everyone busy and in their places.

Checking the cold table at the end of the bar, Peter decided to do a quick refill before he did anything else. The two Tuesday flavors were all prepped and in the coolers, ready to bake in batches as needed, and since they were giving away samples there was no flavor of the day, so despite the added craziness Peter's job wasn't quite as bad as it could have been. The kitchen was on lock - he allowed Tommy an iPod while he worked because it kept the scruffy twenty-six year old in excellent rhythm, which meant the pies came and went in perfect time, and Jamieson, though only seventeen and barely out of high school, had been with him since Moonshine Pie opened. He was a little too cheerful for Peter's taste, but he had a charming, personable way with the customers that won over the misbelievers and kept the regulars coming back. More importantly he had proven himself trustworthy with the cash, which meant that Peter could give the kid a key to the safe during his shift and not have to worry about running back and forth to his closet of an office for change or rolls of quarters.

The six of them actually worked quite well together, and surprisingly worked well with Peter in their own way. They had learned when to leave him alone and when to approach him calmly and quietly, were empathetic in that they mostly ignored his strange behaviors instead of questioning them and weren't constantly asking if he was all right. He got enough of that from his sister, a handful of his packmates she'd set to spying on him. He was grateful for that. At five o'clock they would all go home except for Tommy, who worked a double every day because he apparently had nothing better to do, but the five who replaced them on the evening shift - Sarah, Trish, Matthew, Alex, and Bethany - got on just as well. Peter often reflected on the fact that he'd gotten quite lucky with his staff; the first shift came in at nine and set up for open at eleven, the second shift switching out at five and often staying till midnight, though the shop closed at ten. They had all been on the Moonshine team for at least three months at this point and seemed like they were in it for the long haul - that kind of work ethic and ability to work together couldn't be attributed only to good hiring policy.

Emerging from the cooler with a dish bin filled with bottles, produce, and dairy, Peter slipped agilely past as Tommy headed inside, the sounds of Metallica blasting from the small buds in his ears. Nodding to Peter, he grabbed a tray of chicken pot pies, hefted it onto his broad shoulder, and kicked the cooler door closed behind him as he headed off for the ovens.

All well in his kingdom then.

Dropping his bin onto the end of the counter, Peter reached for knife and cutting board and began to shredding lettuce and dicing tomatoes for the cooler, switching out bottles of sour cream, whipped cream, and hot sauce. Celia and Booker moved around him awkwardly as they filled orders, topping the little taco pies and sending out each order at the pickup station at the opposite end of the bar. It was nosy and hectic out front and it rattled Peter's frayed nerves, but even prep work was soothing to a degree, and by the time he'd filled half the cooler he was feeling a bit calmer.

Not much, but a bit.

There was a bell over the door.

It seemed like no matter what kind of contraption Peter rigged to it, the damned thing still slammed when it fell shut. He didn't like loud, unexpected noises - they made him jump, made his heart start racing and his skin turn clammy with acrid panic-sweat. The bell was just enough of a warning to keep him in control, gave him enough time to focus on his hands and whatever they were doing before the glass and metal crack. He didn't often pay attention to the customers it heralded, but as he worked over the cold table shifting little buckets and bottles on their runners, a somewhat familiar voice made him raise his head.

He recognized the pretty girl with the red hair. She'd been in before, with a slim, arrogant blonde who'd looked around like he would rather eat out of a trash can than off of Peter's counters. He didn't mind that so much, but the girl bothered him. She was a little bold, a little brash, and confidence made her just a little bit too loud. Today, with his hackles already up, his mind distracted and his instincts roused, he wasn't exactly pleased to see her.

Accompanied on previous visits by the young man who'd hung on her every whim despite his obvious distaste for his surroundings, this afternoon she was followed by a much larger group, loud and rowdy and clearly students from the local campus if university-wear were any judge. Three men and three women, clearly couples walking hand in hand, her, and the last boy who'd come in with a scowl on his face, arguing with her the whole way to the counter.

"But Lydia, it's Tuesday," the young man whined, making a wide, thrashing gesture with both arms that made Peter flinch. "We always get tacos on Tuesday!"

"I'm aware of that," the redhead replied. "We've been to Pancho's Tacos every Tuesday for a month, and if I ever see another one of those greasy, disgusting excuses for Mexican food again I'll scream."

"But, but… Taco Tuesday!" the boy declared loudly.

Feeling his eyes flash, his hand tight around the handle of his knife, Peter paused in his slicing and dicing to lift his head and get a good look at the annoyance. He was tall, slim, but with good breadth of shoulders and an air that suggested there was more muscle to him than his many layers let on. He was quite pale for mid-summer, beauty marks dotting his cheek and his throat, and as he stood in profile Peter got a glimpse of a slightly upturned nose, huge, honey-whiskey eyes.

"It's _allegorical_ Lydia," he continued with another wild gesture, almost sending his book bag to the floor. "It's _meant_."

"Hush," the girl, Lydia, chastised as they approached the register. "This place is fantastic, and today if you write a review on it, you get a free sample. A free sample of _taco pie_ Stiles."

Stiles.

The boy scoffed.

Peter wasn't sure why his enhanced hearing had zeroed in on his voice, _Stiles'_ voice, when there was a whole clatter going on around him.

"There's no such thing as taco pie," he muttered petulantly, kicking at the floor. "Just people who are too lazy to roll up their enchiladas."

"I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised Stiles," the redhead said sweetly.

Oddly enough so was Peter when he saw Jamieson hand each member of the group a yellow star.


	3. Gold Star Review

"Good night Peter!" his team chorused, waving as they slipped out the front door.

Clean up and the next day's prep had been finished quickly after close, and normally most of them headed home while he and Tommy stayed behind for a few hours working on the pies, but on critique days they tended to linger, clustering at one of the tables with slices of whatever was leftover and laughing at the comments left behind by a myriad of pleased and discontented customers both. With Wednesday's sweet and savories stashed in the coolers and ready to bake, he'd given the counters a final wipe-down and chased them out, ready to go upstairs and lock his door behind him.

Lifting a hand, he waved the lot of them off, deep down quietly pleased with their smiles and easy banter. It had been a hard day, a difficult day, and it had left his body buzzing with the need to get away, to find a bolt hole and hunker down, but when Bethany had approached him slowly and tucked the cold glass jar full of sticky notes into the crook of his elbow, he'd managed to tamp down on that particular instinct. She'd moved carefully, telegraphed her intentions as she reached up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek, and it had surprised him so thoroughly that he hadn't had time to flinch before it was over.

Bethany was young and shy, her position at Moonshine her first job, and for a long time she'd been frightened and cautious around Peter, unwilling to stay after closing unless Trish, the forty-three year old mother hen of the group, stayed as well. He'd been quietly hurt by her skittishness at first, not sure if it was because he was a male or a werewolf or scarred and damaged to hell. Either way, it felt like he'd done something wrong and he'd withdrawn even more whenever she was in the shop, collapsing in on himself to make himself just a little bit smaller, to make it easier for her to work around him. He didn't necessarily _want_ her attention, but he didn't want her to be uncomfortable around him either. It felt like a small miracle the day he'd accidentally cornered her in the coolers, stumbling backward as he strode through the door and found her inside, clutching a bowl of banana pudding with blue eyes that had gone huge and round and wary. He'd immediately muttered an apology, made to back out to let her through, but she'd said his name, quietly, softly, and then promised him that it wasn't what he thought. Wasn't him, wasn't his fault, insisted that she needed him to know.

That she'd come so far, that together they had built up enough trust between them that now she could kiss his cheek the way Cora did… that was important.

He wasn't really comfortable with the gesture, but for her it was important.

Locking the doors and turning off the last of the lights, Peter mused quietly on how quickly the bonds between himself and his employees had been built. They weren't pack, weren't family, but some of them - Bethany, Tommy, Matthew, who was a snarky little punk and reminded Peter entirely too much of himself - well, they mattered. At least enough that he suffered their touches without snarling or flashing his eyes, that every once in a while something inside of him warmed up a bit when they were around and they somehow managed to put the slightest of smiles on his face.

It wasn't quite enough that he could say that he was happy like he'd been, but mostly it was enough.

Even on a bad day, it was usually enough.

Unlocking the door at the top of the back staircase, Peter let himself into his apartment and locked it again behind him, slumping back with a dull thump and heaving a ragged sigh. There was an immense relief that came with closing himself into his own space, clean and safe and unadulterated with the scents of others, but the trials of a day spent constantly looking over his shoulder, straining to hear the rapid-fire beep and click that haunted his sleep, still clung to the muscles of his neck and shoulders, tight and aching. Swallowing hard, his eyes tightly closed, he sucked in a gulp of air in a futile attempt to get a grip on his quickly crumbling emotions, but it didn't help to slow his quickly rising heartbeat, the way his breath began to come in shallow pants.

A shrill, plaintive cry broke through the shadows that had started creeping in on him, something warm and heavy curling around his ankles, and Peter grabbed on to that focal point with everything he had, using it to drag himself back from the edge, if only for a moment.

"All right, all right," he choked out as the cat yowled again, his voice low and thick and rough. "Hush."

Using one hand on the wall to keep his balance, Peter carefully dodged the orange ball of fluff that streaked back and forth between his feet, determined to trip him up on the way to the kitchen. Placing the glass jar of post-it notes carefully on the counter, he pushed the animal back to the floor when he leapt up onto the laminate surface, flashing his eyes when the cat glared. He wasn't allowed up on the kitchen surfaces and he knew it, regardless of whether or not that was where Peter filled his bowl.

Fetching cool, clean water from the sink and scooping out a level cupful of Meow Mix, Peter narrowed his eyes when the cat sank its claws into the hem of his jeans and tugged, rumbled a growl that was more affectionate than irritable.

Carl was as much of a mess as Peter - his cream colored fur patchy and falling out in tufts, one ear healed to tattered shreds. His tail was a broken kink, the tip hanging at right angles to the rest of it, and he took tremendous offense to the whistle of Peter's teapot, shrieking like a banshee whenever it went off before disappearing under the sofa. He was neurotic and obsessive most of the time and a bit of an ass the rest of it, but Peter had come to find that didn't mind all that much. He actually rather liked him just as he was; a little demanding, a little broken, and a little bit prim and snooty.

And the thing _hated_ Talia, which for Peter was an endless source of amusement and a sheer delight.

Giving the cat a few rough strokes which were ignored in favor of his dinner, Peter left him to it while he hunted up a peanut butter and banana sandwich for himself. He wasn't hungry but he doubted that low blood sugar would help stop the shaking in his hands or the dull, throbbing threat of a migraine beginning to build at the base of his skull. Once he'd forced himself to finish three quarters of it, he left the rest on the counter and stumbled toward the bathroom, climbing into a cool shower and scrubbing away the flour and anxiety-sweat that lay against his skin like cling film.

He hated days like this. Not the business down in the shop, or the uncomfortable nervousness that rose incrementally with the level of paper stars that filled his glass jar. Not that. It was the other, the sense of being haunted, being watched, followed by ghosts he couldn't shake. The way his more animalistic instincts rode closer to the surface, eyes and ears and nose all constantly tuned for danger. It was exhausting, and add to all of that the frustration, irritation, and disappointment in himself that he couldn't shut it off, couldn't make himself calm. He worked so hard, so steadily to get himself back into good physical condition that it was a constant source of anger and irrational shame that he couldn't do the same for his mental state. His psychologist was constantly telling him to cut himself some slack, explaining why he wouldn't see the same kind of results he did with his physical therapist, but on days like this the words rang hollow.

Stepping out of the shower Peter toweled off slowly, dreading the task ahead of him. He couldn't stand the way his own skin felt under his fingers, the scars thick and rough and foreign even after all this time, but his shoulder was aching all the way down to the bone, and he'd learned the hard way not to brush that kind of pain off. If he let it alone overnight he would wake up tomorrow morning stiff and horrendously sore, only capable of about fifteen percent of his normal range of movement, and that discomfort was far greater and far longer-lasting than taking ten minutes to massage some Icy-Hot into his muscle tonight.

Still, he carefully kept his eyes away from the mirror set into the medicine cabinet as he worked, choosing instead to stare at the orange-and-white chevron shower curtain Laura had given him for his birthday last year until his eyes burned. He grit his teeth as he worked the cream into the joint, biting back a whimper that was half one kind of pain and half another, ignoring the way his fingers threatened to sprout claws and clamp down at any moment. When he finally couldn't handle any more he scrubbed his hands thoroughly in the sink, disgusted by the astringent stink of the ointment, and shuffled off to his bedroom to find a shirt.

By the time he slunk back into the kitchen in a pair of sweats and a thick, thermal Henley to fetch the jar of reviews from the counter and brew himself a quick cup of tea, Carl had polished off the last of his dinner and was licking his whiskers clean, ears perking up when Peter appeared. The cat seemed happy enough to follow on his heels, keeping out of the way this time until he sat, hopping up onto the couch and curling up on top of his feet. The clock on the DVD player told him that it was after three, but Peter doubted he would get more than an hour or so of fitful sleep tonight, so he could take as long as he needed to go through the little slips of paper.

Lucky for him, it didn't take as long as it had the first time for him to carefully lift the lid of the jar, break the metaphorical seal and set it aside. No, the first time, the very first time it had taken him over two and a half hours to screw up his courage, two and a half hours of staring at the thing from the opposite end of the couch before he finally spilled the notes out in an irritated huff all over his living room floor. It was easier now, only took him fifteen minutes of sitting with it in his lap and tapping his fingers against the sides before he managed it.

Easier.

Or maybe he was just a little bit better.

That's what his shrink would say anyway, correct him and then sit in expectant silence as a way of forcing him to voice his improvements out loud, like that made them easier for Peter to accept.

At least some of his methods worked - Peter abhorred sitting across from the smug little man with only the tick of the clock filling his office. He hated that sound, that constant _tickticktick_ , and it never took long for him to crack and open his mouth just to cover up that steady beat of nothing, passing time…

Peter jerked, pulled away from the beginnings of a downward spiral once again by an irritable little grumble, the stinging bite of claws prickling his skin as Carl began to knead the tops of his feet sleepily.

Huffing at the cat, he gave him a nudge, accepted the hiss that got thrown his way in retaliation before pulling his feet underneath him to safety. Not that it mattered - thoroughly offended, Carl had flicked his limp tail snootily and retreated across the room to the windowsill, where Peter had installed a little ledge for him to lounge on and watch the people coming and going from the shop on the street below.

Peter rolled his eyes. It was pitch black out there, even to his werewolf's eyes - there was nothing for the cat to see.

Fed up with his own stalling, he placed the lid of the jar onto the coffee table and reached in, coming up with a fistful of stars.

Good.

Good.

Bad.

Good.

Middle of the road and then seven goods in a row.

It should have been an exercise in self-appreciation, or ego stroking at the very least, but Peter wasn't exactly catering to the eloquent crowd. For college students, they often left a surprising amount to be desired. A lot of stars contained two or three word responses, some just smiley faces, and once, god help him, a check plus scribbled in red felt-tip. Peter was pretty sure that one had come from one of the errant professors that occasionally wandered in from campus every once in a while, mired down with the process of grading inane discussion posts about environmental politics or outdated Elizabethan poetry.

Thankfully, the ones with bad things to say were usually perfectly willing to say them, surprisingly loquacious when it came to ranting at a total stranger about all the downsides of the free food they'd just inhaled. He didn't mind - that was actually what he was looking for, even if Laura always frowned when she came in and saw one of the negative ones stuck up on the wall behind the register, neatly manipulating Jamieson into taking them down with a batt of her eyelashes and a few flirtatious smiles.

Lucky then, that the good reviews far outweighed the bad ones.

He loved Laura, he did. He just… didn't _like_ her very much.

She was loud and forward and she _pushed_ him, the way Talia pushed him, the way that made him feel cold and jittery, made him afraid that he might lash out with claws and teeth and _hurt_ …

Rolling his shoulders against the chill that tickled down his spine, he let the dulled ache center him, settle him. He'd been sorting stars almost automatically as his mind wandered, his eyes looking for something he hadn't even realized he was searching for, but when he landed on it it was like electric synapses all syncing up, connections snapping to life in an instant.

He'd known that the redhead made him uncomfortable. _Lydia._ She was so blunt about it, so obvious in her superiority that there was no questioning it, no misunderstanding. But the boy she'd brought in, the brunette who'd caught his notice for no reason at all, _Stiles_ … He hadn't understood it. Hadn't understood why his senses were so attuned to him, why the hair on the back of his neck had stood on end until the boy had left, why he'd been on Level 7, Red Alert…

He reminded Peter of Laura.

A little bit loud, a little bit brash, a little bit cocky, but at the core something sharp and still and observant, something that screamed _danger_ in the face of Peter's fucked-up psyche.

 _Dude, this was amazing! I was expecting, like, lazy-person enchiladas you know? Stacked tortillas with gross red-sauce, but this. Wow. Just. Wow. Words and rambling are kind of my thing, so I'm rarely speechless. My friends kind of want to give you an_ _à_

Peter frowned, momentarily confused before he thought to turn the sticky note over.

… _award. If you can pull this off again you might get one! That tortilla crust was awesome; add these to your menu and I will definitely be back._

Sighing through his nose, Peter bit the soft insides of his lip with teeth that prickled sharply. Certainly wasn't the best or the worst he'd ever read, only stood out because the words had filled up both sides of the little paper star, scrawled in a messy hand that was heavy with sticky _college_ words like 'dude' and 'awesome.' It actually tended toward the nicer end of the good reviews that filled the jar, so he wasn't quite sure why he was so unsettled by it.

Pulling a battered red notebook from between the couch cushions, Peter flipped through the spattered, dog-eared pages until he found his scribbled notes for taco pie, last night's detailed instructions for creating the corn-chip crust jotted in the margins. Pasting the star against the page, he closed the notebook and shoved it back under a throw pillow out of sight. He'd separated out nine other stars that were good enough to be put up on the wall, the rest went back into the jar to be shared with his team in the morning.

Picking up the remote, Peter slouched low on the couch and toggled through to the late-night cooking channel.


	4. Paying Too Much Attention

It was a week and a half before Stiles came back, not that Peter had been paying attention. The lunch rush had come and gone, Jamieson had swept and Peter had wiped down the windows while Tommy cored strawberries for the next day's pies. With everything well in hand and fairly quiet (at least for the moment), Peter took the opportunity to slip back to his office and do some bookkeeping, make a phone call he had been putting off. He wanted to try a pie styled after his grandmother's famous peach cobbler, but wanted to make sure he could actually get the produce before he went and badgered the recipe out of his packmates.

It would be too much trouble otherwise.

Perhaps he could get Cora to do it for him...

Of course, if Talia found out she'd accuse him of hiding again and then things would be ten times worse. She'd taken him hostage for a week the last time, forcing him to live with the pack and refusing to drive him back to his apartment, even after he'd threatened to shift and run all the way back to the city. It was awful – beyond being stuck in his sister's house and having to cave to the temptation to bribe Laura to drive him home again, he'd had to trust Moonshine to Tommy for the whole week. The scruffy young man had turned out to be perfectly capable of the task and hadn't bitched once about Peter's constant phone calls, but it had still sucked every moment until it was over, making him anxious and snappy and irritable.

His only other choice at the time would have been to call the cops, and like hell he would've done that. Talia was his alpha, even if he'd been declared legally independent again after recovering sufficiently to be let out in public without a leash. She was still technically allowed to hold him against his will. Worse still, she never would have forgiven him for it, and as much as he hated her sometimes, couldn't bear her gaze or her voice or her touch, he still loved her.

No real part of him wanted to drive away the last of his family, his friends.

Twirling a pen between his fingers, Peter's mind drifted upstairs to the safety of his apartment, the cat curled up in the windowsill, the red notebook stuffed between the couch cushions where it couldn't be seen.

Taco pie had largely been a success, and would now be added to the list of Pies of the Day, likely to make an appearance every three and a half weeks or so, The best and worst of the reviews were still pinned up on the wall behind the cash register for the customers to peruse except the one pasted into his book of recipe notes. It was the best of them, the most... effusive in its praise, and remembering the words made him oddly uncomfortable, but he still found himself unwilling to share it.

He wondered if he'd meant to put the review out of his mind by putting it out of his sight.

It hadn't worked.

That feeling, that nauseating swirl of conflicting emotions that made Peter's heart race whenever the redhead came into the shop, when Stiles had come with her and when he'd read the kid's review still haunted him, still welled up in his chest strong and burning when the thought of the young man crossed his mind, distracting and panic-tinged. They came too often given the brevity of their encounter, driven by anxiety and the obsessive-compulsive behaviors that rose out of hyper-awareness, paranoia, but Peter had survived them without too much of a backslide, logging his distress diligently according to his psychologist's exacting requirements.

Trapping the thoughts between the covers of an ABC journal helped for the most part, helped him to compartmentalize his feelings, to understand his triggers and his reactions, which were automatic and which he helped perpetuate in his own mind, but it did little to prepare him for the actual moment, the 'activating event,' something he complained about to his shrink with increasing regularity.

When the young man's voice, when Stiles' voice rang out from the front of the shop, it was all he could do not to startle right out of his chair.

Gripping the edge of his desk, he walked himself through his breathing exercises, his mental dough-kneading until his heartbeat slowed again, until his hands didn't feel like they would shake when he let go. It was irrational – he knew that – but he couldn't help they way he felt, and listening to his instincts had been a lesson both long-lasting and well-learned.

Forcing himself to pick up his pen, he focused intently on the last bit of his bookkeeping, meticulously noted the delivery of fresh peaches he'd managed to secure from his contact over the course of his phone call. It was a comfort to know he could still turn on his old charm when he needed to, even if it left him feeling hollow and in need of a shower, the slick manipulation sitting cool and silky on his skin like oil. He'd only just straightened his desk and locked his computer when Celia poked her head around the corner, careful not to block the doorway.

"Somebody wants to meet the master-baker boss," she reported, politely refraining from a reaction when Peter made a rumbly sound of dismay.

"Tell him I'm not here."

"You sure?" she cajoled lightly, casting him a wink. "Could be a big time food critic."

"He's not."

Chuckling, she nodded and ducked away again, her footsteps retreating up the hallway toward the front of the shop. A career waitress, Celia was toughened by years of working in slum-street diners, serving world-weary beat cops and the poor and criminal element they chased alike. It made for a spine of steel and a mouth that could out-curse a sailor, but there was a caring heart underneath and at Moonshine she had become the pillar of Peter's first-shift crew, keeping chaos at bay during rush hour and enabling Peter time to do the administrative work he hated and the creative, culinary work he preferred.

It also meant that he could bark at her, be anxious or strange or irritable around her without risking any hurt feelings.

She understood, and let any assumed slight or insult roll off her back like water, always walked away with a kind word or a forgiving look when he needed it.

Out front he could hear her deliver the news, heard the boy, Stiles, complain and argue half-heartedly, but Celia stood firm and set him about his business, directing him to the register where Jamieson took his order for a slice each of Thursday's sweet and savories; coconut cream and roasted vegetable with basil and feta. The low background noise of the other customers, the daily shop work swallowed the kid up but the hair the back of Peter's neck was still on end, a dull warning humming along the edges of his nerves, but he knew he couldn't hide in his office forever.

He couldn't stand the feeling of being trapped.

Shaking off the shudder that threatened at the base of his spine, Peter scowled, stomped back out into the front of the shop with a dark mood threatening like thunderclouds. Behind the counter Tina and Booker were boxing pie slices with quick, practiced efficiency, took one look at his face, and stepped smoothly out of his way with eerie synchronicity. He felt eyes on him from across the room, felt a sudden flare of interest, of attention but he was quick enough to escape it before it drilled its way through his skull, tickled up his nose into his brain.

"Hey boss," Tommy greeted as he swept past Peter on his way to the ovens with a tray of pies.

He was blasting his headphones again, Black Sabbath this time, saving Peter the necessity of a response. It made walking away easier, made it feel less like running when he headed for the coolers, flipped on the lights and closed the air-tight door behind him. The chill was soothing like little else was, chased away the phantom heat the started to ripple beneath his skin whenever he started getting anxious like this. Leaning back against the steel of the door he let the cold seep through the cotton of his t-shirt, let it creep its way into his chest and fill up the hollow places in him as his eyes automatically scanned the shelves, took stock of prepared mixes and raw ingredients, the number of pies left in neat, orderly rows waiting for their turn in the oven.

Plenty of both left, and he and Tommy had already done all the prep for tomorrow's strawberry-rhubarb and steak and mushroom.

It left him at odds, which was never good.

Idle hands meant an idle mind, and the last thing Peter needed was time to think.

Normally he appreciated down-time, took full advantage of it whenever he could to work on new recipes and tweak the old ones. The actual baking might be his favorite part of this whole thing, losing himself in the exact measuring required of pastry, the experimentation possible with a never-ending litany of flavor combinations. It distracted, consumed, demanded the attention of all his senses, but he was a little superstitious too.

Jittery, irritable, anxious; nothing would come out the way it should right now.

Growling under his breath, Peter shoved himself to his feet and stalked back out of the coolers, crossed the kitchen to the long, stainless steel sinks and started the water and disinfectant running. Moonshine still washed and dried their dishes by hand – not because they didn't bring in enough revenue to purchase an automated dishwasher but because such a unit would take up more room than they had to spare, and Peter still wasn't ready to expand, wasn't sure he wanted to. Dragging a stack of dirty sheet pans into the water, he was careful not to let them clang off the metal the way he wanted to, a show of intent control.

He was just about to sink into the soapy water up to his elbows, make himself face the wet heat on his hands and forearms, the steam rising up from the basin when Booker called to him from behind the counter.

"Hey Mr. Hale, we're gettin' a little busy up here; can you grab Tommy to restock the cold table?"

Mr. Hale.

He hated that.

That was what he used to be called, when he'd still worn suits to work and had an office ten times the size of the one he had now, all walled in glass and chrome, when he'd been the master of a different craft, a completely different person.

It certainly wasn't who he was now.

"I'll do it," he said, drying his hands on his apron. "And it's Peter, kid. Or boss, or sir, or... just not Mr. Hale, ok?"

Booker pinked a little, nodded.

"Shoot, sorry," he mumbled, rubbing his neck. "Can't ever remember..."

"Don't worry about it."

Leaving the conversation before it got any more awkward than it already was, Peter grabbed a bin and headed back to the coolers, loaded it up with home-made whipped cream canisters, crumbled feta cheese, and finely shredded basil. Booker had been born and raised in Kentucky, and the too-polite respect had been as hard for the young man to shake as his southern accent. He was working on it, but it was a talk he and Peter had had a few times now, and it still made him uncomfortable.

Still, it was his issue, not his employee's, so as he passed behind the kid he clapped him lightly on the shoulder, a quick squeeze that was done and over before either of them could be embarrassed by it.

Determinedly ignoring the presence of the young man still sitting across the room, whose eyes followed him down the length of the counter, Peter focused on refilling the cooler, made sure there was a good supply of pies on display behind the glass wall that separated the work counter from the seating area. There was an uncomfortable stillness coming from that direction, from the table where Stiles sat with another young man and woman, his age and clearly a couple, sitting too close and feeding each other bites of creamy coconut pie. It was unsettling, the PDA as much as the odd spark of interest in the air that colored the kid's attention, too sharp, too harsh, too much, and then there was the scrape of a chair being pushed back and the sound of footsteps on the hardwood coming closer and shit, shit shit...

He wasn't sure what he would've done if the kid had gotten all the way up to the counter, wasn't sure what would've actually come out of his mouth if he'd had to talk.

He might've just run away..

Fled, with his tail tucked between his legs, not to descend from his apartment again for the rest of the night.

As it was, he was saved by the bell, quite literally.

The chime of the door cut through Peter's building panic like a knife through butter, and the scent of pack, of family was like the gentle stroke of a hand down his spine, back when that kind of thing had been calming and reassuring and welcome. Closing the lid of the cooler, he wiped his hands and moved toward the end of the counter, stepped out past the register onto the floor to greet his niece.

"Hi Uncle Peter."

It was quiet and calm and casual, confident, everything he loved about Cora. Carefully, but without the awkward, projected pretense of her mother, she stepped in close and gave him a light hug, and it was ok because she kept it to one arm, wrapped low around his waist on the right side - that was to say his left, where the skin was smooth and strong and unmarked. Pressing a fleeting kiss to his cheek, she stayed still long enough for him to duck in and grab a heady lungful of her scent before letting him go and stepping out of his personal space again.

"Aren't you supposed to be in school?" he asked, his anxiety and his bad mood immediately forgotten.

"There's a farmers' market on the south side of campus," she said by way of answer. "Play hookie with me! They just came in this morning; by Sunday all the good stuff will be gone. Please Uncle Peter!"

Peter chuffed, felt his mouth tug in a grin.

It was unfamiliar, foreign on his face since the bombing, since the fire, but that was another reason he loved her. If they'd been caught cutting class, Laura would have threatened him, Derek whined and begged to keep him from telling their mother. Cora didn't even consider it. She knew that the ensuant conversation wouldn't be worth it to Peter, and he knew in his heart that she was doing it for him anyway.

What interest did she really have in rows and rows of fruits and vegetables, raw chocolate and honey?

None, but for the fact that she got to skip school and walk the stalls with her admittedly favorite uncle, in the sun and the breeze of early summer.

She was a weird kid, and it made her perfect.

"Come on, please," she whined, sticking out her lower lip and giving him huge, innocent puppy-dog eyes.

Frowning, Peter scanned his shop, his employees, avoided the customers so he didn't have to look at Stiles, and then decided, what the hell.

Just a few minutes ago he was dying for an escape – he wasn't letting the one that had just walked in the door walk back out again.

"Let's go," he nodded, pulling off his apron as Cora clapped her hands and hopped in place. Balling up the fabric, he stepped down to the end of the counter, lobbed it over the glass into the hamper.

"Tommy!" he called, waving as the man walked past the door to catch his eye. Stuttering to a stop, he tugged one ear bud from its place and jerked his chin in question. "Going on a pick up, I'll be back in two."

"You got it boss!"

Patting his back pocket, Peter checked for his wallet, paranoid enough that he always carried some form of identification on him now. The shop seemed to narrow in on him a bit in that moment, too many customers, everyone too noisy and too close, and Stiles, standing awkwardly off to the side and far too near, and so he nodded to Cora and slipped sideways along the wall and out, letting the shop door far shut behind him as he stopped dead on the sidewalk and tilted his face up to the sun, breathed deep, counted three turns of a pie, one, two, three...

"Ready?" Cora asked, popping her gum and tapping on her phone, ignoring the moment he was having. "I'll drive."

She drove a sporty little Kia Soul in dark blue with a black leather interior, sleek yet tough, and it fit her well. Talia's children were rather spoiled that way, each given a car when they were old enough to drive, but Peter understood their mother's underlying motive – as Alpha she hardly had time to drive all her spawn to their various sports and activities. Laura had had her debate club and Derek basketball, and now Cora her studies in mixed martial arts. She was good too – Peter had managed to sit through a few of her competitions – but most often she used the reliable little vehicle to come to Moonshine, to visit her uncle and drag him out on these short little getaways.

If he'd thought her mother was behind it he wouldn't go, would've come to hate the teenager for it, but it was always her own idea and it never had anything to do with how he was, what had happened to him.

She was silent all the way across town, not that far really but long enough that the lack of idle chatter was noticeable. She wasn't a particularly talkative girl but it was an awfully long ride in an enclosed car not to trade a few words. For the most part Peter ignored it and let it go, confident that if something was bothering her she would bring it up eventually. It was a beautiful day, and after parking they made their way down to the grassy quad of the local university – likely the same school as Stiles and his friends, likely the same school his niece would end up at in a year or two. Walking side by side they entered the little farmers market, Cora sauntering along enjoying the sights and smells while Peter perused the produce.

"So," she began eventually, no hesitance but no brusqueness either. "Everything ok at the store?"

"Fine," he replied, sorting through a pyramid of early sweet corn. "Gonna try to do a peach cobbler pie, like your great-grandma used to do."

"That sounds ah-mazing," she said, dragging the word out and licking her lips. "But that's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?"

"Just, you seemed kinda nervous when I came in," she said, watching him from behind her sunglasses as he handed over a few bills and accepted the plastic bag of crisp green ears.

Peter scoffed, shrugged.

"I'm always kinda nervous."

He knew what she meant, but a part of him didn't want to admit to it, acknowledge it.

"You were staring at that guy."

This time Peter froze, half bent to sniff a display of fresh raspberries.

"What?"

"That guy," Cora repeated, one hip cocked and her phone appearing in her hand, a prop meant to kill the awkwardness that somehow still managed to creep up between them.

Peter felt his cheeks heat, and wasn't that ridiculous, because Stiles, the kid, his two-time customer, was no one to him, and all the drama over him coming in for a stupid piece of pie seemed silly, unnecessary. But it was his own fault, reacting that way, and damn it, Cora paid far too much attention to her surroundings, a trait that would otherwise be admirable if it weren't being used right now to poke at him.

"I wasn't staring," he denied, but it came out a little more vehemently than he'd meant it to and his niece snorted.

"Avoiding him then," she corrected, before dropping her phone down to her side and looking at him intently. "He's not bothering you is he?"

This startled a laugh out of him, a little cracked, a little rusty, still a little anxious, but it settled something between them, shook off the strangeness of the blatant concern not typical of their relationship.

"I don't even know him," Peter answered, slinging his arm around her neck and pulling her in to press a kiss to her forehead in a quick, short embrace. "Come on, I'll buy you a candy apple, ruin your dinner."

* * *

 **Aw I missed this one - Piebaker!Peter 3 Review me please!**


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